In my Last.fm shoutbox, I was recently asked by one of my readers to post more frequently in my blog, and seeing as your whim is my law, I bring you this: an essay of sorts about the last topic you’d expected me to write about! :D

One of the things you might not know about me (then again, if you’ve been on a forum with me in late May, you just might know it), is that I am a big Eurovision Song Contest fan. “What?” you might ask. “But Terje, I always thought you had so great a taste in music — what happened? Why, oh God, whay hatht Doth abandonthed meeth?”

Well, obviously, a lot of it is the whole sarcasm thing. Sure, it’s cheap, but sitting with a few like-minded friends and poking fun at some of (okay, most of) the Eurovision contestants is one of my great joys in life. Additionally, several years of watching the show (I remember I always used to watch it with my parents when I was a kid) has left me witn an almost morbid fascination for it. Of course, I remember a few years when I was about fourteen or fifteen when I thought it was rubbish, but luckily I outgrew that in a year or two. I mean, how ridiculous is it to dislike something just because it’s rubbish?

One thing this pretty much lifelong interest has left me with, is a perhaps illusory sense of what songs are most likely to win. I’ve been miles off before, though, but in later years I’ve stopped favouring the songs I like the most myself, and instead look at what country a song is from, and whether it might appeal to your average braindead Eurovision viewer. Thus, I’d like to share with you my estimates for tonight’s final. To, you know, give you something to laugh at tomorrow.

First of all, though, my own favourites. That is, the songs I like the most; not the ones I believe will actually win. For once, Norway is actually one of my favourites. And this isn’t chauvinism from my part (or at least not much; it might make me disposed towards liking it, but this disposition is a two-edged sword, as it’s more likely to make me dislike the song). Just ask me about any of the Norwegian contributions since 1996, and the only one other than Storeng’s that’ll be given marginally honourable mention, would be Wig Wam’s. Anyhoo, the song in itself isn’t of the kind that I normally listen to, and within it’s genre it’s not really anything special. But even its mediocrity distinguishes it from just about every other Eurovision song, as most of it is the dregs from some of the most abhorrent genres out there.

My other favourite, Albania, is pretty much the same: a slightly better than okay tune, performed in a tasteful way. Also, it’s saying something that this and Bosnia & Herzegovina’s contributions are the most indie-like songs this year. ADDITION: Oh, but I forgot France! The French contribution is actually cool! Who’d have thought! That it’s an electropop tune with a Wes Anderson-like video doesn’t exactly make it less so. I’m a bit skeptical as to how well it’ll work live, though.

Oh, how I long for a Norwegian contribution that blends Kings of Convenience with The Shins! Or an Solefald contribution in the style of their Icelandic Odyssey albums, preferably one where Aggie “Frost” Petterson could help out with the choruses! Just imagine a group with the name Frost og Solefald or Solefald og Frost playing some of the finest melodic Viking Avantgarde Black Metal ever made. Sigh.

Until then, it seems as if we have to content ourselves with an Albanian powerpop ballad and some admittedly decent but hardly mind-blowing Finnish power/heavy metal (at least it’s decent considering that power and heavy metal are two of the most variable genres out there).

Well, those were my favourites. Here come the ones I suspect might actually win.

Greece
An early Britney rip-off, but the kind of streamlined, empty dance pop Eastern Europeans seem to enjoy so much. Also, it seems that if you’ve been at war or had constant bilateral belligerency with a country for several decades in the past 100 years, they’ll give you lots of points. (Western Europe’s long standing tradition of dumping a shitload of bombs on Serbia doesn’t seem to be giving us much credit, though. But I guess they have enough with their neighbours.) So… 10 from Turkey, and 12 from Cyprus, just to kick things off?

Israel
The Israeli singer sounds like a 12 year-old girl, but he looks like every woman and gay man’s slightly androgynous but very muscular dream. Also, the song’s not really all that bad. Might be some sympathy votes to be gained because of the Arab rabble they’ve got running around their borders, too.

Serbia
This Enya’y ethnopop ballad is the best of the directly qualified ones — both Germany and Spain disappoint greatly, and the UK is just a big meh. It might be a bit too similar to last year’s winner, but seeing as the musical quality doesn’t seem to be very important to most people at all, and as Serbia are just about guaranteed to get high scores from Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, and probably the other Balkan and Slavonic countries as well, this one’ll be in the top five.

Poland
A fucking awful song, but that seems to be right up most of Eastern Europe’s alley. Also, the singer might be perceived as beautiful by some people, and that always helps.

Those were the ones I believe are most likely to win, although after the expansion of the EU and subsequently also of the Eurovision organisation, the contest seems to have developed into a kind of instrument for geopolitical stability and national chauvinist agendas (although it always had a lot of that), and so it’s very unpredictable. Kinda like football, which is nice.

As for the rest of the candidates, Armenia has a very pretty girl singing a semi-catching pop song with folk elements, and could have done okay if not for the horrendous English lyrics (as if that matters to the illiterates of Europe. Bah!). Azerbaijan has a power metal act with a Christian stageshow, but it just looks girly next to Finland. (Also, it makes me want to pay Satyricon or Burzum or Gorgoroth or, better yet, Mayhem to compose and perform a contribution for Norway.) Bosnia & Herzegovina has one of the most freaky stage performances this year (perhaps the one, after that useless Irish puppet was kicked out), and despite the fact that the singers can’t sing, the refrain crescendo is kinda cool. Croatia has sent a couple of old men, one of whom shouts and shakes his cane at the audience, which is cool, but not winner material. Denmark has a boring pop song that is so nondescript the only thing I remember about it is that the singer wore suspenders and a hat, and that they had an actual band. The Georgian contribution is a blind chick singing an English variant of “Ein Bitchen Frieden”, only with crappier lyrics and a forgettable melody. Germany is one of the countries I haven’t heard much of, yet, as they’re directly qualified, but what little I have heard seems to indicate that the Germans, understandably enough, really, restricted voting to homosexual men and 11 year-old girls this year. Tonedeaf homosexual men and 11 year-old girls, I might add. Iceland’s song isn’t that bad, really. Two seemingly happy people who sing a cheery techno song. Not exactly my cup of tea, perhaps, but hardly too annoying, either. Latvia has the worst contribution this year. Shit, it’s even worse than Ireland’s! There was a time I would just have laughed at this one, but damn, I’m getting sappy, because now, it is nothing but annoying. If you’re gonna be ironic, the least you can do is to do it properly, and have good music to accompany it. But no. Not Latvia. Gah. Portugal has a fat chick singing about how she lost her love to the sea; another wildcard, but probably not something you’d want to listen to, really. Romania, labouring under the misconception that they are the descendents of a Roman legion who stayed behind to protect the peasentry (or the gold mines, more likely) rather than retreat to Rome during the Migrations, has an Eros Ramazotti clone singing an utterly nondescript and meaningless lovesong to his aunt or something. Eugh. Russia… well, Russia claims that they had Timbaland produce their song. If this is true (unlikely as that is), well, that’d just be one more reason to ban Timbaland from ever approaching musicians or touching a musical instrument again. Because this is tripe, and it’s tripe sung by a boy who seems to believe he’s the hottest thing since Pompeii. He might be more destructive, in the long run, especially if he wins, but hotter? Nah. Spain are directly qualified because they pay much to keep the whole freakshow running, and in good timocratic spirit the Spanish have decided to rub this in the faces of the rest of us (as well as remind the people of Europe why the Spanish Inquisition still is the most infamous of them all) by sending a guy who raps in Spanish in a presumably humorous manner. Gods, I wish I could talk the Norwegian minister of finance into buying Spain. Then we could see who was laughing! And speaking of countries we should buy, Sweden has sent the winner of 2004 or 2005, or something, a skeleton of a woman who performs a forgettable technopop song. Turkey… well, my flatmates claimed that Turkey had a good song, but I haven’t really heard it. It looked like they had sent an actual band, though, and that’s always a good thing in my book. Sounded a bit too much like generic Emo to me, though. Not that I have anything against Emo (most of my favourites bands are Emo as hell), but generic Emo? No, thank you, but would you pass me the Snow Patrol, please? Ukraine has more dull technopop for us, and another laughable stage performance. After Latvia, this one was the one I was most perplexed at seeing get to the final. Finally, there’s the directly qualified United Kingdom, with its upbeat, cheery but, to me at least, boring pop song.

That concludes my Eurovision Song Contest post this year. I might be back next year for more, or I might be back tomorrow with a summary. And in that hypothetical summary, I might even say something about how surprised I was to be reminded that the contribution from Belarus (Europe’s Last Authoritarian State (c)(tm)) was given the boot. Yay, Europe; you actually managed to do something right! :D )